SOME HUNTING CAMPS 163 



stalking. Under cover of a hummock, we advanced to within 

 about seventy yards, when I shot the bird. As always happens, 

 on receiving the shot it ran thirty yards forward and fell. 



During the whole of our travels we observed but one kind of 

 rhea [Rhea darwini). The remarks that Darwin makes concern- 

 ing the habits of this bird have little to be added to them. The 

 male bird, which hatches out the young, will, when approached, 

 feign to be wounded in order to draw off the intruder from the 

 nest of the chicks. I have never seen more than nineteen chicks 

 with a single ostrich at any period within a month or two of the 

 hatching, but I was informed by the Gauchos that this number 

 is not an outside limit. When started, Rhea darwini does not 

 usually open his wings, as does the Rhea americana. This fact 

 has been noticed by Darwin. On one occasion, shortly after 

 leaving Trelew, we chased an ostrich, which, having run a couple 

 of hundred yards, opened its wings. We did not, however, secure 

 the bird. 



Only when with young will the ostrich, on starting, expand 

 the wings, but, as I have said, this is a ruse ; yet I have seen them 

 proceed for a short distance with wings full open at times when 

 hard pressed. In the present instance we cut up our ostrich, 

 taking the stomach, which, cooked as an asado, or roast, is esteemed 

 a luxury by the Gauchos. The stomach was full of the grass of 

 the marsh. Up to the end of December we found eggs. When 

 fresh they were of a transparent and pale green, which after some 

 days merged into a pallid white. 



While we were yet engaged in cutting up the bird, the neck- 

 skin of which came in very usefully as a tobacco-pouch, we paused 

 in the work and took a look round with the telescope. On the 

 heights above us, two brown objects were to be descried, which 

 on examination proved to be huemules. They had evidently 

 seen us, and their curiosity had been excited by our movements. 

 Hesitatingly they began to descend the hillside towards us. We 

 cut some antics and so decoyed the unlucky animals within range. 

 After killing them, we took the skins of both, as there is no example 

 of this deer in summer coat in any of our British collections. 

 They were still shedding their wincer coat. 



